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Talk Nation Radio: The War on Whistleblowers With Thomas Drake and Jesselyn Radack

By davidswanson - Posted on 21 August 2012

Jesselyn Radack and Thomas Drake discuss their experiences as government whistleblowers, the retribution they've endured, and the currently worsening pattern of secrecy, intimidation, and persecution of whistleblowers in Washington, D.C.

Jesselyn Radack is a former ethics adviser to the U.S. Department of Justice who came to prominence as a whistleblower after she disclosed that the FBI committed an ethics violation in its interrogation of John Walker Lindh (the "American Taliban") without an attorney present, and that the Department of Justice attempted to suppress that information. Her experience is chronicled in her memoir, TRAITOR: The Whistleblower and the "American Taliban". Radack was this past year's co-recipient of the Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence award.

Jesselyn Radack is the Government Accountability Project's National Security & Human Rights Director. In her role, she works primarily with national security and intelligence community whistleblowers, including those from the Defense Department, Department of Homeland Security, NSA and CIA – with a special focus on torture, secret surveillance, secrecy, and political discrimination. See http://whistleblower.org

She recently represented former NSA official Thomas Drake on whistleblower matters stemming from the government's unsuccessful prosecution of him under the Espionage Act.

Thomas Drake is a former senior executive of the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA), decorated United States Air Force and United States Navy veteran, computer software expert, and whistleblower. He is the 2011 recipient of the Ridenhour Prize for Truth-Telling and co-recipient of the Sam Adams award. The government's retribution against Drake, for exposing waste, abuse, and incompetence, included charging him under the Espionage Act. The charges fell apart.

Total run time: 29:00

Host: David Swanson.Producer: David Swanson.Engineer: Christiane Brown.Music by Duke Ellington.